“The speed of the Upper Palaeolithic revolution in the Levant was also breathtaking. Anthropologists Ofer Bar-Yosef and Bernard Vandermeersch:“Between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago the material culture of western Eurasia changed more than it had during the previous million years. This efflorescence of technological and artistic creativity signifies the emergence of the first culture that observers today would recognise as distinctly human, marked as it was by unceasing invention and variety. During that brief period of 5,000 or so years, the stone tool kit, unchanged in its essential form for ages, suddenly began to differentiate wildly from century to century and from region to region. Why it happened and why it happened when it did constitute two of the greatest outstanding problems in paleoanthropology.”
"Where and how the Cro-Magnons first arose remains unknown. Their appearance, however, coincided with the most bitter phase of the ice age. There is, however, no doubt that they were more advanced, more sophisticated, than the Neanderthals with whom they shared the land. Living in larger and more organized groups than had earlier humans, Cro Magnon peoples spread out until they populated most of the world. Their tools, made of bone, stone, and even wood, were carved into harpoons, awls, and fish hooks. They were presumably able hunters although, as with the Neanderthals, they would also have foraged to gather edible plants, roots, and wild vegetables. The only problem here is that, as far as can be told, the Cro Magnons seem to have arrived on the scene without leaving a single trace of their evolutionary ancestors. Ian Tattersall observed:'When the first Cro Magnons arrived in Europe some 40,000 years ago, they evidently brought with them more or less the entire panoply of behaviors that distinguishes modern humans from every other species that has ever existed.'"
lw1990 wrote:The aquatic ape theory, from what I understand, does not suggest humans lived in 'a body of water', something as simple as a jungle or forest being seasonally flooded (creating a type of marshland) would have sufficed.
lw1990 wrote:The aquatic ape theory, from what I understand, does not suggest humans lived in 'a body of water', something as simple as a jungle or forest being seasonally flooded (creating a type of marshland) would have sufficed. ....
The aquatic model suggests that in a flooded habitat, bipedalism may have been resorted to under duress, the significant reward being the ability to breathe air.
It means those earliest humans spent at least half of their lives in water. They'd come up on land for fruit or to make fire and cook meat or anything else they wanted to cook, and to make weapons and tools. But virtually all of our physical adaptations are for living in water.
How do you know they had fur and, allowing that they did, how do you know they lost it during the ice age? Not all the planet was covered in ice, mayhap these hominids lived in the more temperate climes.His fur while ice ages were in progress.
How do you know they had night vision? Lots of creatures today how have no night vision live among large predators who do. Admittedly they cheat by sleeping at night and coming out during the day. Perhaps you are suggesting that these hominids of yours weren't smart enough to work out that one.Almost all of his night vision while living amongst large predators which could see very well in the dark.
How do you know they lost 'almost all' of their sense of smell? Why would an aquatic or semi-aquatic creature develop a major sense of smell?Almost all of his sense of smell while trying to survive as a land prey animal
Lots of creatures today get by without a reliance on their sense of smell. 'Any predator'? Are you suggesting a centipede could prey on these hominids? More seriously, how do you think modern humans would cope against any decent-sized predator today? I could mention that smell only works from downwind. Predators know this and hunt from downwind of their intended victims.That third item would make an early human an effortlessly free meal for any predator which ever saw him
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